Gold Crest - Coach Company from Hell (Gold Crest Holidays)

Member Name: blondgem

Product:	Gold Crest Holidays
Date:	14/02/08 (358 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Drivers tried to make it enjoyable

Disadvantages: The whole itinerary was a shambles

I always get excited when I am going on holiday and when I was going Amsterdam for New Year, I was more than excited I couldn't wait. I had always wanted to go to Amsterdam, I should have gone earlier in the year but something hapened and I ended up having to stay at home. The holiday was for three days and it was booked with a coach company called Gold Crest, who in my opinion have got to be by far the worst coach travel company that I have ever been with.

We were picked up on 30th December by the feeder coach from Stoke Bus Station and taken to Medway to get onto our individual coaches to our destination as everyone on the feeder coach was either going to AMsterdam, France, or Belgium.

The coach we were on was very good in general, it had a snack bar and bar should you require alcohlic and soft beverages which was a bonus. The drivers were very friendly and so was the hostess on the journey there and we thought we were going to be in for a good new years break, also it was their last trip themselves so they probably wanted to make the most of it.

The crossing to France was okay, however much to our amazement we were advised that we were staying in the Hague and not actually in Amsterdam where we were under the impression was our destination, after all the break was called New Year in AMsterdam. The journey to the hotel was comfortable and we made regular stops throughout our journey. It made me laugh when we entered another country that my phone kept sending different texts to welcome me to another network. Went through 4 networks in one day.

Upon arrival at the hotel, the drivers found out that Gold Crest had not actually paid for our accomodation, however the hotel kind enough let us stay. This made us start to think if Gold Crest hadn't paid up and drivers were leaving the company, what on earth was going on.

The trip itself cost £180 each which included the journey, crossings, accommodation and new year entertainment which included a firework display at one of the local beaches.

We all waited for the coach on new years eve and went to the beach to find absolutely nothing there, no one at all, a couple of bars with minimal people in them even if they were open. This couldn't be right, it was an organised firework display. It was throwing it down with rain and everyone jumped off and started to have a wander round, we found a bar that was open and had a few drinks and people then started to appear with their fireworks. This was not a fire work display it was free for all.. and their culture accepts people just letting fireworks off here there and everywhere, no safety regulations whatsoever and literally fireworks were zooming in between your legs.

Everyone boarded back onto the coach and we actually spent new year on there, lucky they had a bar on board or no one would have seen the funny side. The hotel bar closed at 9pm, so the whole New Year experience proved a great disappointment.

The coach drivers could not apologise enough for the experience that we had, the whole 3 days, something went wrong everyday, that gold crest had not managed to sort out. It was obvious that something was going on and the drivers made every effort to try and entertain a coach full of tourists who were all looking for an enjoyable New Year. The older generation didn't semm to bothered and enjoyed the attempts of the drivers to cheer them up, however us younger ones didn't really find it as entertaining as they did.

We complained to Gold Crest but didn't even receive an acknowledgement to our complaint. Disgusting.!! What should have been a great New Year turned into a disaster and not what we expected.

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